Miguelina

The One Where I Get To Quote Betty Draper

How is it possible that today is September 21? And that the last time I posted was September 9th? If this was a job I'd be FIRED by now. Good thing I'm the boss and I play favorites. Shameless!

So, nothing new to report. I'm inching closer to my due date with nothing to show for it other than my HUGE belly, which causes a commotion so great every time we go out in public that my mild-mannered mother has started growling at strangers. Seriously. I can't walk out in public without having every third person (male or female, young or old) try to engage me in conversation. Add to that the fact that I have two other children, and that I can't walk anymore -- what I do is waddle, in the strictest sense of the word, waddle, and I'm not exaggerating for once, it's the God Honest Truth -- and well, any errand takes me three times as long as it normally would, which I guess is great preparation for the third child, but which is also is getting old fast.

The only semi-interesting thing to happen is that we had a false alarm yesterday -- I thought my water had broken, but I wasn't sure -- and I was having contractions, and they weren't all that bad, but I called the Dr. just in case, and they sent me to the hospital, just in case. Everything went so smoothly and everyone was so cheerful (and let's face it, I'm so READY) that I was just hoping that it would be the day. It was so dreamy, in fact, that the nurse and doctor who was on duty (a man who I'd never seen before in my life) both said that they hoped today would be the day because we seemed like such nice a nice couple.

(In hindsight, it CLEARLY wasn't time -- who is pleasant when giving birth? But it would have been nice.)

Anyways, I'll spare you the details, but once it was finally determined that my bag of waters was still intact and we were all standing around not sure what to do next, I said the only thing that came to mind:

"My water never breaks."

Which, of course, was only funny to my husband and me.

Then we went out for a late lunch at Petit Robert, where we sat outside and pretended we were in Paris. I had a Croque Madame and ice water and my husband had some pork and wine. We argued over baby names and flipped the pages of the same baby name book we've used in all three pregnancies. We came up with the most ridiculous names we could. We got to really have fun with this baby.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, now that I think about it.

Everyday Treats: Color of Hope

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and L'Oréal Paris - but the compensation isn't why I agreed to review the Color of Hope collection. No, really. Pinky swear!

Ten years ago, I was a product manager at L’Oréal and that, I admit, is part of the reason why I wanted to be a part of this program. Not because I have a soft spot in my heart for the company (which I do - it was a fabulous place to work) but because I made some of my best friends while working there.

One of my closest friends while at L’Oréal is the reason I’m participating in this program.

READ THE REST OF THIS POST HERE...

Still pregnant. What else is new?

Thing is, when I started writing on the internet I made a conscious decision to make this site about myself and nobody else. I started writing online when I found myself home with my first baby, not quite alone but needing an outlet that would leave more of a permanent record than a phone call or conversation. So I made it about me. Sure, I mention other people -- especially my children -- when it's relevant, it's not like I live in a vacuum, but I choose to tell MY stories. Maybe it's selfish, maybe it's not authentic. I keep reading that a true artist is supposed to mine the lives of the people in their life, but in this place? I choose not to.

I'm 100% fine with that.

Problem is, sometimes I have no stories to tell. The past few weeks are a perfect example of that. I've been majorly (and I mean MAJORLY) pregnant, but I don't have any of the first time mom anxieties to share with you. This is my third pregnancy after all. It's not as much fun to tell you about rearranging the same baby boy clothes I've seen twice before. I guess we could buy new clothes, but really what's the point? I know better by now.

Nesting has also been different this time around. My house is pretty clean (thank goodness), so there are no middle-of-the-night bathroom tile scrubbing episodes to share. The nursery is ready, having just been vacated last week (when my two year-old figured out how to do a flip out of the crib into the extra bed in the nursery -- once my heart stopped palpitating wildly I moved on to training him to sleep in his big boy bed, which is no small feat, but something I'm too tired to talk about right now.) I'd wash the sheets, but the baby will be in a bassinet in our room for the first few weeks anyways, so what's the rush?

The one thing that you could call "nesting" is that once my mom arrived to hang out with us and help us with the baby, I was finally able to tackle all the yard work that has been killing me all summer. I took a huge pair of clippers to our yew hedge, and with the help of my mom trimmed those suckers down. That felt good. Well, it felt good spiritually, but physically it killed my back. Unfortunately, it did nothing to accelerate labor.

Sigh.

(This image is from June. The belly is at least twice as big by now. And growing.)